


another state

by biremuslupin



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Post-Canon, blue drives the pig, gansey has a hand kink, gansey wears a burger king crown that is noteworthy, hooternation, very into the idea of gansey and blue moving to ny for school
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21513982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biremuslupin/pseuds/biremuslupin
Summary: blue and gansey on the road to new york
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent
Comments: 4
Kudos: 48





	another state

**Author's Note:**

> big ups to theo and vani bc we r all sluts for gansey blue nyc. thank u

Despite the impressive amount of clips she’d haphazardly placed in the early hours of the morning as Gansey loaded up the Pig, Blue’s hair blows in the wind. It flies around her face as she pushes the Pig to its limits. She’s definitely going at least twenty over the speed limit, but Gansey is too distracted by the way her hand loosely grips the steering wheel to say much about the matter. Gansey supposes there are better, more productive things he could be doing as Blue drives, but there’s something endlessly thrilling about how comfortable she looks behind the wheel of his car. Something even more thrilling about her hand on the gearshift, but he has enough self control not to look too closely at that one, lest his thoughts dip toward the indecent.

Blue is either unaware of Gansey’s attention or unbothered by it. She’s been singing along to whatever songs Ronan had put on the mix he’d made for them since they got onto the highway. Gansey’s fairly certain he’s never heard any of them before, save that god awful squash song Ronan had stuck between two songs about the open road and long journeys ahead. If Ronan were in the backseat, Gansey would’ve turned it off immediately. But he wasn’t, and Gansey had already started thinking about how long it would be until he saw Adam and Ronan again, so he’d turned the song up as high as the Pig’s worn speakers would allow and sang along, matching Blue’s shouting along to the chorus. Gansey likes to think he’s become a lot less reserved in Blue’s company. She brings out the best version of him. The version that can _just shut up, Dick_ and listen as she talks. Or just shut up, in general. Gansey’s become a bit better at just existing. He’s always been quick to fill the silence, but Blue makes him not want to. Blue’s silence is a lot more friendly than Ronan or Adam’s; where Adam and Ronan’s silence is building up to something, Blue’s silence _is_ that something. And Gansey’s always been a fan of Blue’s particular brand of somethingness. 

“What?” Blue asks with a smile.

“You’re a good driver,” Gansey says. Blue makes a face at that, and he can tell she’s about to ask if he’s surprised because she’s a woman. “I’m not surprised,” he adds preemptively, his own smile widening to match hers. “Just an observation.”

“If Ronan were here, he’d say he’s surprised I could reach the pedals,” Blue says.

Gansey laughs and tilts his head back against the headrest, not thinking about their end destination and how terribly far it is from Ronan. New York. Columbia and NYU, respectively. He knows it’s what he wants, to be on such a historic campus and to live in a studio apartment with Blue and to get to learn more about history outside of the tunnel vision he locked himself into so long ago. It’s freedom and it’s independence and it’s wonderful. But Ronan is in Henrietta and his family is in D.C. and Adam’s in Cambridge, sure, but he’s always liked having everyone and everything he loves within a three hour car drive. 

“He’ll be fine, Gansey,” she adds. She moves her hand from the gearshift to grab Gansey’s, and he looks down as she intertwines their fingers. The gesture is calming and Gansey can’t help but feel a bit better as a result of it. It had been his idea to move in together (for practical purposes, of course. Even the smallest apartment in New York is far too expensive to rent out alone, obviously.) and Blue had agreed to the idea, but there's still a part of him that isn’t entirely sure that it’s what she truly wants, no matter how many times she tells him exactly that. The last thing Gansey wants to do is hold Blue back. 

“When was the last time you were in Manhattan?” Blue asks, fingers tapping against the wheel in time to the song that had started in the time Gansey had begun to consider Blue’s hand in his. She’s trying to distract him and he knows it, but he allows it anyway. 

“One of my mom’s fundraisers. You would’ve hated it. Or loved it, maybe,” Gansey replies thoughtfully. He’s never entirely sure how Blue will feel about things. He supposes that’s one of the things he loves about her, her unpredictability. She is an enigma, whereas Gansey’s probably the most predictable person he knows. 

“I would’ve hated it,” Blue replies. Her thumb runs along Gansey’s hand absently and it’s this gesture that finally gets him to stop thinking of Ronan. It gets him to stop thinking altogether, really. His mind goes blank as he watches her hand in his. It’s only meant to be comforting—and it _is_ —but it’s also got Gansey thinking about the things Blue can and has done to him with her hands. 

Gansey doesn’t reply. Blue goes back to singing along and Gansey goes back to watching her hands and he doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when he next opens his eyes, they’re parked at a truckstop and the sun is dipping below the horizon.

“You said you weren’t going to fall asleep,” Blue says, not unkindly, as she pulls the keys from the Pig with a triumphant noise. He thinks she’s probably been trying to turn the car off for a few minutes—not because she doesn’t know how to, but because the Pig is endlessly finicky. “I want greasy food. Are you coming?”  
  
The truckstop is unnecessarily bright, fluorescent light that washes out the reds and blues of the various fast food places lining the place. Blue makes a beeline for the Burger King nestled in between the bathrooms and a pizza place advertising the world’s biggest slices, pulling Gansey along, her hand in his.

He doesn’t understand why she so badly wants Burger King until she asks for a crown. She stands on her toes to place it atop Gansey’s head, laugh echoing in the mostly empty stop. “Smile!” she says, and he does, because Blue’s laugh is fantastic and it’s midnight and he doesn’t know where he is, but he doesn’t really care. She snaps a picture with her phone and says something about how much Henry will love it. 

They eat at a table pressed against the windows, floor to ceiling in a way that reminds Gansey of Monmouth. He mentions this to Blue and she laughs.

“It’s a truck stop. The only thing this place and Monmouth have in common are the tire tracks in the parking lot,” she says, between mouthfuls of mostly stale fries. “Oh, and angry bald dudes with birds.” She nods to a sculpture overlooking the automatic doors and smiles brightly.

“They’ve also both got an open floor plan,” Gansey replies as he carefully a ketchup packet. Ketchup gets on his finger and he raises it to his lips to lick it off. “And bathrooms five feet from the food.”

“Oh, don’t remind me,” Blue says with a wince. “I’m eating.”

Gansey laughs at that, thoughts drifting to the calls he’d made to Blue in that very same kitchen/bathroom conglomerate. “Our bathroom and kitchen are on opposite sides of the apartment. I’m learning.”

“The bar is devastatingly low. On the floor. I refuse to celebrate you realizing that you shouldn’t be able to reach for a soda while you’re peeing,” Blue says with a vague gesture in the direction of Gansey’s cup. 

“You don’t have to,” he responds, but they celebrate anyway, to some degree. Not because their toilet is a safe distance away from their fridge. But because it’s _their_ toilet and _their_ fridge and _their_ apartment and it has started, their lives together have started, and Gansey wouldn’t want to share it with anyone else. 


End file.
